Earth
by Zwip
Summary: The story of how Doumeki Shizuka found and lost a home.
1. Initially

**Fandom:** xxxHolic  
**Characters:** Doumeki Shizuka, Watanuki Kimihiro**  
****Warnings/Ratings:** None.  
**In A Nutshell:** Incoherency, as usual.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own xxHolic.

Initially, Doumeki Shizuka did not go to the shrine often. In fact, he'd gone only seven times before, one for each previous year of his life, each on New Year's Day. His father never attributed success to religion and his mother had apathy toward it with an almost pagan fervor, so Doumeki Shizuka, age eight, saw more checks to the squat, little building than the building itself.

Today, however, he felt different. Not entertained by the constant cacophony of playmates or the television or any flashy toys and suddenly incapable of faking his contentment, he made an escape to find the quietest place he could.

He wouldn't have thought the shrine would be so empty, having only ever gone on the packed festival day, and came upon it with a sense of pleasant surprise, trotting up on short, little legs to find the embodiment of a sanctuary.

The grass and trees boasted their greenness, alive and inviting, so unlike his home, where all was dead, cold, and lonely. He walked through the gate uncertainly, positive that something would indicate his unwanted presence, out him as the outsider. Nothing did, and he gave a sigh of relief, sitting under the largest tree and reclining to his back.

Blue sky shone through the leaves, so like a comforting blanket that he nearly dozed off. Then he saw the eyes.

Sapphire, breathtaking, startling, and most certainly, _staring_. He sat up, alarmed, as the eyes (and the attached boy) attempted to flee. Doumeki caught him by the back of the hakama, yanking him down so hard that it caused his sandals to fly off haphazardly.

"You were watching me," the gold-eyed boy stated, less accusatory and more interested, despite his usual desperation to avoid this very type of person: his peer.

The other boy flushed. "I was curious! I've never seen you here before." Doumeki, understanding this, offered him a hand up. Blue-eyes, suddenly livid, sprang to his feet on his own, picking up the downed sandals like an afterthought. "And just what gives you the right to pull me down like that, anyway?! That was really rude, you know!"

Doumeki shrugged. He did know. He didn't care. He began to walk away, but there was a tremendous tug on the back of his collar, toppling him to his back.

"How do you like _that_?" The blue-eyed boy giggled, very proud of himself, as he extended his hand to the heir to the largest fortune in Japan. Doumeki took it and righted himself. "Name's Watanuki. Yours?"

April First? He couldn't judge; his own family name and disturbingly fitting given name were strange enough, but still. April First? "Dou… Shizuka." No sense in telling a stranger his family name, especially since a stranger that retaliated against him probably didn't know just how powerful his parents were. At least, not yet.

Doumeki was beginning to think he liked it that way.

Then he realized that there was no sense in telling a stranger his name at all.

"Well, Shizuka-chan-"

"Don't."

"Don't?"

"It sounds girly." He'd spent enough time being girly to last him his entire life.

"Shizuka?"

"Shizuka," he affirmed with a nod.

"Shizuka, then. Why don't you come to the shrine?"

"You don't have to when you send money," he explained.

Watanuki nodded, understanding. "Why come at all, then?"

"It's quiet."

"I can't stand that about this place."

"I like it," Doumeki challenged.

"You should come more often, then," Watanuki chastised. Doumeki, not wanting or needing someone new to boss him around, began to leave, walking to the gate. "See you Thursday!" The blue-eyed boy called cheerfully.

The wealthy boy spun around quizzically. Watanuki just smiled a Cheshire-cat grin.

Doumeki Shizuka, age eight, turning back around, thought he just might not come back ever again.

…

"Never, ever underestimate the power of suggestion," Watanuki declared on Thursday as Doumeki meandered up to the gate. He'd been waiting, evidently, broom in hand.

"Today's April first," Doumeki said, ignoring the blue-eyed boy's smug remark.

"Yes, and?"

"Your birthday?"

"How'd you guess?" He seemed genuinely astounded.

"Watanuki, spelled April first."

"Hey, are you making fun of my name?" He flailed.

"It's very obvious about things."

"What is?"

"Your name."

"Well, of course it seems that way now that you _know_!"

"Hn." An awkward silence ensued.

"You're not even going to wish me happy birthday?" Watanuki crowed.

"Happy birthday," Doumeki deadpanned.

"Humph. You can't have many friends with an attitude like that."

"I don't."

"Erm…"

"And?"

"Well," Watanuki tried to backpedal," that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Doumeki stared.

"It's so cool out," he backpedaled even farther.

"No it's not," Doumeki corrected.

"Well, sorry I'm a bit cold-blooded!" He looked up, adding, "But it's definitely going to rain."

Doumeki looked up at the cloudless sky, then back at the other boy, who was now walking off. The golden-eyed boy marched after him.

"I'm sorry; I've got to attend to this funeral! I totally forgot!" It seemed as if there was suddenly a great mass of people, mourners, keeping him from his new companion, who rushed into the shrine.

Not feeling a need to bother with following him any further, he began to push and excuse his way out of the heart of the crowd, nearly out when a voice called, "See you Saturday!"

As he exited the gate, he reflected on how awful it was to have a funeral on someone's birthday.

That night, it rained.

…

Doumeki showed up on Friday. Watanuki, who was sweeping, appeared to have failed to notice the rich boy approaching him.

"What are you doing here?" He asked, leaning the broom against the steps awkwardly before the golden-eyed boy could even tap his shoulder.

"You said Saturday."

"Yes, and today is _Friday_." Watanuki's eyebrows arched.

"Yes." Doumeki wanted to see the boy on his own terms, when _he_ wanted to, and he always had his way when he was intent upon it.

Watanuki grinned. "What if I just said that to make you come today, instead, so I could see you every day?"

"I could have some Sunday."

"But you didn't."

Doumeki turned and left.

For a week.

…

Watanuki was waiting by the gate impatiently, tapping his toes, when Doumeki arrived.

"You never told me you were rich when I asked who you were!" He flailed his arms wildly, looking like some ridiculous, exotic bird.

"That's not who I am," he replied, unfettered.

"Of course it is! Who you are is what you eat, what you do, what you see, who you're with, who you love…"

"You only asked for my name."

"But that's who you are, too! A name is so important…" Watanuki paused, glancing at the tree. "Did you not tell me because of publicity? Or did you think I'd turn you away?"

"You could have figured it out. We're famous." Honestly, the wealthy boy was surprised it had taken him so long.

Watanuki huffed. "Well, would you like to climb that tree, your Highness?" He didn't wait for the response, which came only through the silent act of following, anyway.

Doumeki scaled it much faster, lowering a hand to the struggling shrine boy, who stuck out his tongue and pulled his lower eyelid down in return, nearly losing his balance. After clambering onto a sturdy-looking branch on his own, he informed his companion, "It's a very safe place, up here."

Doumeki didn't even bother with the irony.

* * *

It's been a while, eh?


	2. Then

**Fandom:** xxxHolic  
**Characters:** Doumeki Shizuka, Watanuki Kimihiro**  
****Warnings/Ratings:** None.  
**In A Nutshell:** There is sadness.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own xxHolic.

Doumeki Shizuka, age eleven, did not consider himself a very religious person. He wouldn't mind being one; he found a certain calm at religious institutions the world over, no the matter the denomination, but his destiny was to inherit the family business, not become a monk, and eternal servitude to get to heaven or enlightenment or nirvana or Valhalla didn't appeal to him any more than that did.

Despite all of this, the shrine had become his new home of sort, the green his moat to keep out the thoughts of his other life, his _real_ life.

"What do you _do_ all day?" Watanuki asked as they lounged, nestled within the loving arms of the tree that had grown with them.

"I work. Sometimes I pray." Studying for the ability to take over the company competently was extremely time-consuming, but Doumeki still managed to expend some time on his prayers, because they reminded him of Watanuki, the only real family or friend or person he'd ever felt for, his parents too distant and no siblings or cousins he knew well, and if he couldn't think of him every so often, he was just a boat, cut adrift, floating with no destination, no _why_.

"That sounds so boring!"

"I visit you," Doumeki offered. Every day he could for the past three years, he'd gone to this refuge of his, the only place he could feel alive.

"Which is _not_ boring!" Watanuki declared, swinging from the tree to make a wobbly landing on his left foot. "I bet I can beat you to the gate!"

The gate, under the wing of the Doumeki family's pocketbook, was the only thing that seemed not to have changed at all, painted and repaired regularly, just as much a friend to Doumeki as Watanuki was.

The wealthy boy jumped to the ground and landed lightly, determined to close the distance from the shrine-dweller's head start and defeats him. He loved the hotheaded boy's face when it was glowering at him.

Touching the gate gently and a full second before Watanuki could, Doumeki smirked.

"It was a miracle!" The loser panted, out of breath. "You cheated!"

"Well, which is it?" The winner leaned against the gate nonchalantly.

Watanuki stuck out his tongue and collapsed onto the ground, laying down and spreading out. Doumeki collapsed beside him.

…

"I'm sorry," Watanuki said, his eyes red and watery and voice warbling.

"Hn," was all Doumeki could say. What he wanted to tell Watanuki was that he didn't need to cry for Doumeki's parents if their own son wouldn't.

"It seems like no one should be buried on such a beautiful day. I always thought funerals should be on ugly, messy days." He looked over at Doumeki, who was staring at the ground. "Because they're ugly, messy things." Still eliciting no response, he hesitantly worked his arms around his friend, wrapping him in a cool embrace.

Surprisingly, the now-orphan dropped his guard, resting his head on Watanuki's shoulder and closing his eyes.

"You know," Watanuki said lowly," they say the dead are reincarnated as butterflies, sometimes. But I think you should be able to choose." Doumeki didn't move. "I'd want to be a big, strong tree. What about you?"

"I'll be fine becoming dirt." He always had to ground the peculiar, blue-eyed boy and decided that this would be the best way.

"That's not very positive," Watanuki chided weakly, a little hitch in his voice. He rested his head against Doumeki's. "Feel better, please. If not for you, then for me." Their cheeks brushed as he released him.

The command to feel better echoed in his head, so, for Watanuki, he did.

* * *

In light of recent computer obstacles, I have decided to post up all that I have typed of this story.


	3. After

**Fandom:** xxxHolic  
**Characters:** Doumeki Shizuka, Watanuki Kimihiro**, **Kunogi Himawari**  
****Warnings/Ratings:** None.  
**In A Nutshell:** Extensive, bizarre figurative language.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own xxHolic.

Doumeki Shizuka, age sixteen, was as aloof and cryptic as the he'd been born, but was saying less now. After the tragic accident that had claimed the lives of his parents, his grandfather had come out of retirement to run the company with his shrewd judgment until Doumeki had finished college.

His grandfather impossibly thought religion was more useless that his father did, but Doumeki, in an act of uncharacteristic persuasion, managed to convince him to not only continue to donate money to the shrine but to donate even more than before.

"You know what I like about you?" Watanuki asked rhetorically, up in the braches of the tree, watching Doumeki climb. "You're not noisy or bothersome and you don't ask any questions at all. It makes being with you so much easier."

"So," the archer said, climbing up next to him, "I'm your opposite."

"What is that supposed to mean?!" Watanuki gave him a look both threatened and threatening, and Doumeki was finding that the longer he knew him the harder it was to tell which.

The heir gave him a look, once illegible in Doumekiface, a language that Watanuki was now fluent in. This particular look meant, "You're nosy and bothersome and ask too many questions."

"Quite honestly, I'm insulted." Doumeki stared. "But if you didn't like me this way, you wouldn't be here."

This look said, "Too true."

…

"Aren't they bothering you by now?" Watanuki drew out his syllables to be as long as the legs that were peeking out of his yukata with startling paleness against the vibrant grass, as long as the summer day from which they were currently heat-drunk.

"Hn." Doumeki has a good idea of what his intoxicated friend was referring to, but was too lazy to think about it and all of its repercussions and too busy concentrating on not licking that cool, cream-white skin until it was just as hot as he was. He stretched out a little more, shirt long gone and bright, green grass tickling his tanned, muscular back like the tentative touch of a new lover.

"You know. About a girlfriend." Watanuki let out a breathy sigh, parting his lips nearly irresistibly. Doumeki would have suggested he remove his yukata if it weren't for the fact that anyone might see him or the fact that he didn't seem to be sweating much or the fact that he probably couldn't control himself if he saw everything he'd been imagining for what seemed so long now. Today was as unbearable as it was long as it was electrifying as it was exciting and Doumeki couldn't leave even more than he couldn't control himself so he had to stay and confine his arms and his fantasies to himself.

He gave Watanuki a look that said, "I don't need a girlfriend."

"People will worry."

"Let them." He was feeling dangerous; the protective leaves of the tree not doing enough to keep him from this drunkenness, to keep him from feeling parched for blue eyes the color of deep, deep from which he longed to drink. "They'll be aging from it, not me."

"Haha." The laugh came out more like a pant. "You've never been very kind, Shizuka."

The jolt of the pant combined with is name uttered in that breathy tone made him ache badly to show Watanuki just how kind he could be, but instead he muttered, "Hn/" Some voice from the bottom-most, deepest part of his mind chided him for not obeying instinct, but Doumeki knew that rolling over to finally, finally take what he wanted might roll over this house of cards, so tentatively and tediously built, that was his only important relationship.

A girl meandered through the gate, _their_ gate, and Doumeki couldn't help but feel that she had just trampled his peace and violate his happiness with this unwanted intrusion.

Watanuki's eyes lighted upon her immediately. "That girl's nice, from a respectable family, and so cute and generous!" The sensual quality in his voice was so suddenly gone, replaced with the usual coolness, like waking up to an empty bed, alone. Doumeki frowned, even angrier with the curly-haired girl now. "Here, I can help you with her!" There was a glint of mischief within the sapphire globes of his eyes, then he stood, and, quite blatantly, tripped her.

As she toppled towards the ground like so many cards, pure reflex made Doumeki catch her, and the _shk_ of queens and jacks and aces hitting the ground resounded within his ears.

She looked with at him with moss-green eyes. "Thank you! I…" She giggled nervously, the sound of tolling funereal bells. "I have such horrible luck!" She righted herself, straightening her shirt. "My name is Kunogi Himawari. May I ask yours?"

"I'm…" He looked around for an escape, for Watanuki, but he was gone, a sudden breeze chilling the archer's bare chest and mocking his sudden loneliness. "Doumeki Shizuka," he deadpanned, defeated, grabbing his shirt from the ground and putting it back on reluctantly.

"Thank you for saving me, then, Doumeki-kun." She beamed at him.

"No problem." He began to walk away, intent on finding that little rat who'd left him with the girl, knowing fully well how poorly socially-equipped he was.

"Um, excuse me," she called, "but I came here because I was lost, and…"

He turned.

"Do you think you might be able to walk me home?"

"Maybe," he admitted begrudgingly. "Where do you need to go, Kunogi-san?"

"Please, call me Himawari-chan," she chirped, snaking her arm around his with a sense of finality.

* * *

This is actually my favorite chapter.


	4. Furthermore

**Fandom:** xxxHolic  
**Characters:** Doumeki Shizuka, Watanuki Kimihiro**  
****Warnings/Ratings:** None.  
**In A Nutshell:** Regret.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own xxHolic.

Doumeki Shizuka, age twenty-five, might have been miserable if not for his utter ambivalence towards the world as a while. Slowly taking the reins of the company as his grandfather's health began to fail, also finishing up a doctorate degree in business from Tokyo University, and set to marry the highly desirable Kunogi Himawari, he barely had time to think, much less pray or visit Watanuki, which was the darkest part of the newest chapter of his life.

He'd managed to get a minor degree in religious studies snuck past his overbearing, ailing grandfather, but Doumeki knew now better than ever that it had _never_ been about the religion, thought it was a good substitute fertilizer to keep him from withering away.

"Congratulations on your engagement! Isn't Kunogi-san the greatest?" Watanuki gushed. It had been three months since he'd last seen the blue-eyed man, and his own engagement was the last thing he wanted to talk about, but since it made his best and only companion happy, he was forced to oblige.

"Yes," dropped from his mouth, cold and unwanted, like a slug. The worst part of it was that she _was_ the greatest, she _had _to be, for someone, but she just couldn't be the greatest, not for him.

"You don't sound very enthused. Why not? She's perfect!" He was indignant and red, forcing Doumeki's undesired desires up like a thorny rose blooming from the center of his chest and up his throat. It physically hurt to force them down after so long.

"So I've been told."

"Do you refuse to see it for yourself?"

"I see it perfectly well." In truth, Doumeki hadn't seen anything but Watanuki, not since eight years old, and without him, he was just a blind man groping around in the dark, making connection with nothing.

"You know, you should spend more time with your fantastic, darling fiancée than with a silly childhood friend," Watanuki reprimanded, the words significantly reducing Doumeki's ability to breathe.

"I should," he agreed, jumping from the good, old tree and landing with a thump.

As he half-jogged away, Watanuki muttered, "See you…"

…

Time was a train going by far too fast and Doumeki felt like a bug, splattered onto the front as it plowed through him, full speed ahead, until the point at which he'd be wiped free from it.

He didn't feel ridiculous climbing the tree, though he knew he should. He'd been too old for far too long to the point where he guessed it didn't matter anymore. He crept up on the dozing Watanuki, who leaned against the trunk with his eyes half-closed. He wondered if he should kiss him like that, while he was in a stupor, but guessed the time for that, too, had passed, like an evanescent summer day.

"I heard your wedding was beautiful," Watanuki remarked.

"Why didn't you come?" If Watanuki had been there, it might have been okay, but instead he felt as if he'd been ripped open, all his organs on display, as the masses of people he never knew and never would know looked on with tears in their cold eyes.

"I had shrine duties," he said, his voice dripping with contrition. "I really wanted to go, but I couldn't leave."

There was a pause as a bird landed on Watanuki's branch, noticed Doumeki, then fluttered away.

"Happy birthday," the golden-eyed man said, fishing a small, wrapped package from his pocket.

"You didn't have to get me a gift, really…"

"Open it." Watanuki did, looking at the gift curiously.

"Seeds. What type?"

"Tree."

"… What type of tree?" Watanuki sighed, cool breath tickling the hair on the back of Doumeki's neck, somehow.

The ex-archer shrugged. "Find out."

The blue-eyed man huffed. "Come with me," he demanded, hopping from the tree. Doumeki followed. They trotted to a small stretch of soil to the side of the shrine, where two shovels were conveniently located. Watanuki attempted to grab one, but his now-married companion shoved his hand away roughly.

"My present to you," he explained, thrusting the spade into the earth. Honestly, he just couldn't stand the thought of that moon-white skin being dirtied.

As he patted soil over the final hole, he reflected on the state of his filthiness and the fact that he'd been able to use his muscles, both making him excessively happy, no matter how sore he'd be.

"Himawari likes your gift," he said; not the gushing thanks she'd wanted Doumeki to give his best and only friend but good enough. The watercolor painting was beautiful and brilliant, filling him with wistfulness every time he saw it in the too-blank foyer.

"I'm glad," Watanuki replied, smiling softly.

"I have to go home now." The idea of a newlywed neglecting his gorgeous, young wife for another man could create media frenzy, one he didn't want to deal with just as much as he wanted to be with Watanuki.

"I'll see you Thursday, then," the object of his long-lived love asserted.

Thursday came.

Doumeki didn't.

Watanuki was happy just to wait.


	5. Finally

**Fandom:** xxxHolic  
**Characters:** Doumeki Shizuka, Watanuki Kimihiro**  
****Warnings/Ratings:** None.  
**In A Nutshell:** The end.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own xxHolic.

Doumeki Shizuka, age thirty, fully suspected that his life had crumbled to his very feet without his knowing. The company had been long overshadowed by newer and better, but he'd managed to sell it at just the right time, leaving him with not only a vast sum of money but also with nothing to do and no purpose to all those years he's spent in preparation for being the head. His marriage, having no true foundation to begin with, had been cold and unyielding until the day of its inevitable collapse, when he'd found the note on the counter and the house empty as a tomb.

The shrine, though, in its entire small, underrated splendor, was still a sanctuary to him, but in the time when he desperately needed the most amnesty, he couldn't bring himself to go.

The tiny blip of pain in the void of his emotions had a name: Watanuki. He began to hope that if he could do one, single thing right, it would be to finally, finally tell him how he felt.

"I heard about the divorce," Watanuki said solemnly. He had always worn white, hadn't he? Maybe?

"Hn?" Doumeki stood under the tree, staring upward at the sky through the leaves, at the sapphires dotted with coal that made up the eyes of the only person that had ever been anything to him.

"I'm sorry." Watanuki probably thought it hurt. It didn't anymore. He extended a cool, pale hand to help Doumeki up.

"You don't have to be." _It was my fault_, he wanted to say. _I should be apologizing_, but he just continued, "I signed the papers, too."

"That might be the most you've ever said to me all at once," Watanuki marveled, looking squarely at Doumeki's eyes.

"Hn."

"But you'll be alright?" He asked, blue eyes glistening. Doumeki did not respond. "You'll be alright," Watanuki declared. The golden-eyed man didn't feel like correcting him.

Doumeki was tempted to lay his head on that should and feel that cool embrace once more, but he noted that the time for this was too long gone, buried in an unmarked grave within his heart. Himawari had said he didn't feel anything, but the problem was that he had felt too much, just not for her.

"I'm surprised you haven't asked," he deadpanned.

"Asked?" Watanuki knew he was treading on eggshells.

"Asked why." Doumeki could smirk, knowing that this would pique Watanuki's interest to the point where he would have to ask, but he was too tired for that now.

"I didn't think you'd tell me."

There was a pregnant pause, and Doumeki thought fleetingly of hot, summer days and a rainy, indoor wedding.

"Why?" Watanuki questioned finally. Though he had provoked it, the divorced man suddenly found himself without any legitimate answers.

"… I couldn't," he finally responded, the words resounding like doomsday trumpets in the empty air. Somehow, everything faded away when he was with Watanuki, he realized, and he wondered what else he'd failed to notice all this time.

"Couldn't what?" He always had to prove, to be nosy and loud and find every weakness and problem, and, Doumeki though, that might have been his _own_ problem all along, never asking about anything and never wondering. The train of time was stopping and he was panicking about the wasted ride.

"Be married to her."

"Is that supposed to be an acceptable answer?" Watanuki should have sounded livid, instead he sounded weary, worn, and Doumeki thought childishly that with all of the repainting and fixing they did around the shrine, maybe they should have repainted and fixed the loudmouth; he always looked so drained, washed-out, all but for those deep, blue eyes.

"She knew it, too. She's better off without me."

"I don't know that anybody could be."

Doumeki wanted to know Watanuki's given name now, so far along. He wanted to know a thousand, no, a million minutiae of facts and couldn't imagine where he'd get the time to ask about any of it at all.

"I couldn't love her." Those eyes, each seeming to hold a separate universe, swiveled to his own. "Because I love you."

Watanuki nearly fell off of the tree. Doumeki caught him, pulling him close to his chest.

"No, no, no." Pale hands beat against the chest with each dry sob, percussion in the funeral procession. "You can't."

Doumeki Shizuka, thirty years old and so, so tired of running in circles, decided to come to a standstill. "Watch me,"

And finally, finally, he did what he should have done too far long ago, on a hot, summer afternoon or a messy funeral day or perhaps even before that, when everything became so blurry in his head.

He kissed him.

It was the best, worst feeling in the world, the wind rustling the tree's lively leaves with a great crescendo before the end.

"You can't," Watanuki said, and this made no sense because their lips were still meshed together but Doumeki was so _tired_ of idiosyncrasy that he let it go.

"Why not?" What he'd always wanted had dangled before him nearly his entire life, he'd finally gotten a taste, and it was worse than before.

"Because I'm _dead_, Shizuka. I'm dead. And now," the sezura came, a hitch in his voice, "now I have to go." The wind kicked up so much dirt into Doumeki's eyes that he had to close them, and when it had died down, he opened his eyes to find himself clenching a tree branch with so much strength that his knuckles went moon-white.

"Hn. Bastard." Doumeki let his head against the trunk, brushing mud from his cheeks.

…

Doumeki was still visiting the shrine.

Still praying.

Still loving.

He would often lie under the trees he had planted to the side of the shrine, glancing through their vibrant, loving leaves towards the blue sky peeking through like so many too-light eyes.

It was April First. He didn't have a gift. Sometimes he wanted to look up a Watanuki, find out any and all information about him, to see if any of it was real, until he decided that none of it was very real at all and it didn't matter.

"I should have guessed," he addressed the biggest of the trees, "you get to be a tree now." He had a lot of regret, but some part of him knew that if he had confessed earlier, he would have had that much less of the dead man's presence. He wasn't sure if that was good or bad. "Maybe one of these. Or one in a far-off place. Doesn't matter. Someday I'll be your earth. Wherever." He lay down under its shadow, taking off his shirt for a pillow. The breeze caressed him gently as he fell asleep.

He dreamed of the wind; of a hot, summer afternoon; of a funeral on a bright, messy birthday.

* * *

It was a strange time.


End file.
